And it’s a shame that it’s treated as so. We happily share the different medications we’re on if we physically injure ourselves so why not with our mental health?

“I’d rather take something and have a chance of being happy than be miserable for the rest of my life” is what I said to my mum when my doctor recommended I start a course of Citalopram when I was 19, though part of me was scared. I didn’t actually know anyone else on anti-depressants (spoiler alert: far more people than you think are). I thought it was something to be feared, something you kept a secret because “what everyone else would think”. So for a good while I hid it.

As I ventured through college, more and more people would announce either directly or discreetly like it was nbd that they were on medication for their depression/anxiety/OCD/bipolar/BPD etc. I started to feel a bit more comfortable sharing with others my experiences on them, just like I had shared my experiences with therapy and how that convinced some of my friends to go.

But one common misconception is that medication cures you. It doesn’t. If it did, the anti-depressant industry would be bankrupt.

A year I wouldn’t have envisaged at the end of the last one. A year where certain places are deemed too heartbreaking to return to yet. Where certain songs can’t be listened to.Where frosty mornings bring more flashbacks than fresh starts.

A year where for each good thing that happened it was compounded by a worry, a fear that it’ll lead back to where I was before.

A year of grief.

A year of gut wrenching truths that even now I’m too proud or naive to admit to but I know they’re there.

It was a year of endings.

It was a year most unfair and cruel.

I’d love nothing more than to be able to turn the dial back and redo it all. Maybe things would have been different but I can’t and instead I’ve chosen to look at what things help with recovery.

I joined Galz Gone Wild after a Thursday evening crying to my mother about how miserable I was as a result of this year. I was worried, terrified, deeply unhappy with myself and very lonely. I had a habit of bailing, of going silent in fear that no one really gave a crap about me anyway – so I cut ties before ties could be cut on me. I couldn’t trust myself to make a single decision no matter how big or small.

I don’t think I’m alone in saying that I can’t wait to see the back of 2019. It’s been a horrendous year for many different reasons and it seems like everything around me has been affected in some way – my family, friends, relationships, my physical and mental health, my work, my hobbies – they’ve all taken a hit in one way or another. I spent the first half of the year going through family and relationship trauma that took me the second half of the year to process. And I’m still trying to figure it all out.

So really what I’m trying to say is that I’m tired.

I’ve learned that I’m so scared at being discarded that I put myself through a huge amount of emotional energy to self-preserve – at the detriment to myself. I blow tepid in fear of scaring people off. I have a very unhealthy relationship with food. I view myself as completely unworthy for anyone or anything and it’s why I get so frustrated with myself. I’m aware of how other people’s behaviours towards me have reinforced this idea in my head. I learned that the undue stress I put on myself has started to take a physical toll. I know that living alone is lonely. I find it difficult to trust people. I’m constantly comparing myself with others.

This has been one of the darker years.

But with all of those things came the learning curves (yeah, the sappy ones) – the realisation that your self worth doesn’t rely on anyone else’s opinion of you, that it’s never too late to change, that sometimes people act in a way towards you that has nothing to do with you. That you do get through the things you thought you’d never get through. You do get over the people you thought you’d never get over.

I’ve gotten into hiking (from a recommendation of a great friend) and that has opened a whole new door for me of new people and opportunities of adventure. I’ve started seeing a counsellor again (who has changed my life – and after 7 years of finding the right one, comes as a relief). I’ve a much better grasp of my mental health; what the triggers are and how I overcome them, and I finally got my full driving licence which has given me a wealth of freedom that I didn’t think possible.

I think that next year a lot has to change because with the way things are going, it’s not sustainable. I certainly don’t want another 2019 setting the tone for the 2020s – I don’t think I could do it again. I’m still trying to figure out what it is that has to change before I can set about doing it. I’m hopeful for what’s to come but honestly, I am worn out.

But until then, I’m taking it day by day. Because what else can you do?

Yeah, I know it’s been a while but the truth is is that I had nothing to say. Out of all my lists of “post ideas”, all my scouring on the internet for inspiration, I couldn’t find one topic that drove me to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard).

I’ve become very comfortable with hiding away. The idea of being unreachable, uncontactable or just generally *not there* has become so attractive that I find myself going days without talking to my friends or engaging with other people aside from work and home. I like to think that I’m wiping the slate clean and starting from scratch but in actual fact, I’m just getting lonelier.

I started seeing a new counsellor who I’m making great progress with – she suggested that my need to hide away is product of my inability to express anger at what has happened this year and instead I turn it on myself. And wow, it kind of started to make sense.

I was never originally afraid of change. It always seemed very attractive to me when it was pushed into the near future and I didn’t have to really worry about it much. In other words, I wasn’t afraid of the idea of change. But the next few months are a period of change for me and yes, I’m afraid.

Stevie Nicks sang Landslide on Thursday night and I cried. Not only because that song was a big one in my childhood but because it makes sense to me right now. I’ve become quite comfortable with how my life has been the last few months and now that things are changing, I’m afraid of how it might change me.

I’ve stopped telling people how I feel. It has almost become a competition on who has it worse which doesn’t help anyone. I know it’s hard to remain objective when you feel like what’s happening to you is the worst possible thing but just like someone else’s beauty isn’t an absence of your own, your problems existing doesn’t mean others’ are trivial. So in order to deal with what’s on my plate, I’ve stopped sharing it.

I think that the best description on how I’ve been feeling lately is despondency. I am overwhelmed the point of being downright disinterested. The things that make me happy, don’t. The people I find comfort in, I can’t. I struggle to get up and go to work, to eat well, to get any kind of exercise, to read, to write. The only feelings I do feel are anxiety and frustration. And extreme fatigue.

Part of that is the medication I’m on, it kind of sedates you. I know if I take it in the morning, it knocks me out completely. Part of it is the emotion of the last number of months. Part of it is subconsciously knowing I have to move back home in a few months. Part of it is the constant managing of my finances so that I have enough to live on.

It doesn’t matter how much sleep I have, I will wake up tired.

So, in other words, it’s just the stress of life. But that doesn’t make it any less difficult to deal with.

There are many things in life we take for granted. Especially the small things. And as things in this world are not exactly wholly positive, it’s now more than ever that we should celebrate the small things. And yeah, it’s a bit of an erroneous list to write but why should we not do things for the fear of other people finding it cheesy?

I’m making a better effort to celebrate the small things in life like…

When the crowds and stragglers finally clear and you can take a photo you can be proud of

When you get onto the train just seconds before the doors close (or when the bus driver waits for you). Bonus points if you get a seat upstairs at the very front.

When the sun comes out on a cool day and warms your face

When you finally have that chance to overtake a slow car and have endless empty road in front of you

I don’t think I’m as horrified as I could be (or should be). I don’t mind birthdays but they were never really a huge focus in my life. I’m not a “it’s my birthday month” kind of person, I honestly just want to get on with my day.

It took me a while to realise that your birthday is just another day in the calendar. You’re not supposed to (or expected to) magically feel anything in particular. Things aren’t meant to be miraculously different. You won’t discover the meaning of life or find enlightenment. It really is just another day. So I’ve stopped having massive expectations for my birthday and allowed it to just be. And for that, I am much happier.

But classing myself as being in my ‘mid-20s’ is a little frightening. Here I am, 24 going on 25, with a handful of achievements and dreams of a couple more.

I share my birthday with Reese Witherspoon and William Shatner (v cool) as well as my best friend (medium cool) who was born in the same hospital on the same day in the same year just hours apart. He and I only met in college but our lives ran pretty parallel to one another until then.

In those 25 years, I’ve done a lot. As much as anyone would really. There’s nothing particularly extraordinary about my life. I haven’t achieved anything massively spectacular or survived any enormous amount of trauma (aside from mental health struggles) but I have learned a few things; things that have helped me, things that I wish I knew before I learned them, things that have been difficult to come to terms with and things that have more or less saved my life – both metaphorically and literally.

So I thought it’d be fitting to share twenty-five of those things here and maybe when I hit fifty, I’ll have another twenty-five to throw at you.